Saturday night fever 8211; Amdavadis have a blast at DJ Grind

AHMEDABAD, Aug 16: Throbbing hearts. Gyrating bodies. Pulsating beats. Gay oblivion. That probably sums up the surcharged atmosphere at R...

AHMEDABAD, Aug 16: Throbbing hearts. Gyrating bodies. Pulsating beats. Gay oblivion. That probably sums up the surcharged atmosphere at Rajpath Club on the evening of August 14 when Ace Promotions, along with Pepsi, brought the DJ Grind here. For more than two-and-a-half-hours, the predominantly young crowd had a blast dancing to music played by popular DJs Akbar Sami he of Jadu and Jalwa fame and Akhtar of the Mumbai discotheque 1900s. The touch of glamour was added by the hostess of the evening, MTV VJ Maria Goretti Warsi.

There were also Sukhbir, Jassi and Daler Mehndi and these were clearly favourites. Maria livened up the show and even obliged young men who wanted to dance with her.

Marketing professionals Siddharth, Sandeep and Shailesh said they had a gala time. 8220;We often used to hit the disc at Pune where we did our MBA but now we hardly get the time. Boy, this is fun!8221; exclaimed Sandeep. But Kartik, an engineer, wasn8217;t impressed. 8220;Don8217;t they have anything other than Indi and Bhangra pop?8221; he asked exasperatedly.

Besides, the show wasn8217;t all smooth sailing. It started more than an hour late and instead of leading directly to the Grind, it opened with an All-Gujarat Open Dance Competition. Said a miffed Yogi not his real name, who was eliminated in the preliminary round, 8220;There were participants mostly from Ahmedabad, with just a few from Vadodara. The two cities do not make up Gujarat.8221;

Vijay Shah, who made it to the final round, had another tale to relate. 8220;I run a dance school and was asked by the people from Ace Promotions to fill in as many forms as possible, each costing Rs 50. However, at the last moment, they rejected the category of Group Dance claiming only two forms had been filled.8221; Shah had filled in the form for the solo category too but at the venue was told that he was not listed. 8220;I had to produce the counterfoil of the form for them to acknowledge they had made a mistake,8221; he said.

Pinki Soni, whose brother and sister were also competing, said, 8220;We were told that finalists will be allowed to bring two people free and a pass of Rs 300 will be made available to them at Rs 100. However, when we came here, they said only participants will be allowed in. It was only when we all united and raised a cry that they relented.8221; The organisers also invited a professional dancer like Bharat Baria of Darpana Academy to participate in the competition. Said Baria, 8220;I entered the competition only because they actually requested me several times to participate.8221; No wonder Baria went on to win the runner-up prize.

In fact, Akbar Sami himself was not happy with the scene. 8220;The organisers are nice people but I expected something different..8221; But it must be said of the organisers that the event was well managed. There were no problems and for the better part of the evening, the gathering had a ball on the dance floor. Ace Promotions did get a few things right after all!